University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

The gloomy painter would have done much with the
scene before them. The wild and mystic imagination
would have made it one of supernatural terros; and
fancy, fond of the melancholy twilight, would have
endowed the dim shadows, lurking like so many spectres
between the bald cypresses, with a ghostly character,
and most unhallowed purpose. Though familiar with
such abodes, Singleton, as he looked upon the strange
groupings thrown along the sombre groundwork, was
impressed with a lively sense of its imposing felicity.
They stood upon an island in the very centre of the
swamp—one of those little islands, the tribute ooze of
numerous minor water-courses, hardening into solidity
at last. These, beating their feeble tides upon a single
point, in process of time create the barrier which is to
usurp their own possessions. Here, the rank matter of

the swamp, its slime and rubbish, resolving themselves
by a natural but rapid decomposition into one mass, yield
the thick luxuriance of soil from which springs up the
overgrown tree, which heaves out a thousand branches,
and seems to have existed as many years—in whose
bulk we behold an emblem of majesty, and, in whose
term of life, standing in utter defiance of the sweeping
hurricane, we have an image of strength which compels
our admiration, and sometimes the more elevated
acknowledgment of our awe. Thus, gathering on this
insulated bed, a hundred solemn cypresses mingled
their gaunt, spectral forms with the verdant freshness
of the water-oak—the rough simplicity and height of
the pine—all intertwined and bound together in the common
guardianship of the spot, by the bulging body of
the luxuriant grape-vine, almost rivalling in thickness,
and far surpassing in strength, the trees from which it
depended—these formed a natural roof to the island,
circumscribing its limits even more effectually than did
the narrow creek by which it had been isolated, and
through which the tribute waters of this wide estuary
found their way, after a few miles of contracted journeying,
into the bed and bosom of the Ashley.

A couple of huge fires, which they had seen in
glimpses while approaching, were in full blaze upon
the island; one, the largest, near its centre; the other
somewhat apart, upon a little isthmus which it thrust
forth into the mouth of the creek. Around the former
lay a singular assemblage of persons, single, or in
groups, and in every position. There were not more
than twenty in all, but so disposed as to seem much
more numerous to the casual spectator. Three, in the
glare of the fire, sat upon a log at cards, one at either
end, and the third, squat upon the ground beside it. A
few slept; some were engaged in conversation, while
one, more musical than his neighbours, broke into a song
of some length, in which the current situation of the things
around him underwent improvisation. A stout negro
prepared the evening meal, and passed between the
card-players and the fire to their occasional inconvenience;

their sharp but unheeded denunciations being
freely bestowed at every repetition of the offence.
The dress and accoutrements of this collection were
not less novel, and certainly far more outré, than their
several positions and employments. Certainly, taste
had but little share in their toilet arrangements, since
the hair of some of them flew dishevelled in the
wind, or lay matted upon their brows, unconscious of
a comb. The faces generally of the party were
smeared, and some of them absolutely blackened, by
the smoke of the pine-wood fires which at night were
kept continually burning around them. This had most
effectually begrimed their features, and their dresses
had not scrupled to partake of the same colouring.
These, too, were as various as the persons who wore
them. The ragged coat, the round-jacket, and sometimes
the entire absence of both, in the case of some
individual otherwise conspicuous enough, destroyed
all chance of uniformity in the troop. There was but
one particular in which their garb seemed generally
to agree, and that was in the coonskin cap which surmounted
the heads of most of them—worn jantily
upon the side of the head, with slips that flapped over
the ears, and the tail of the animal depending from
front or rear, tassel-fashion, according to the taste of
the wearer. Considering such an assemblage, so disposed,
so habited, in connection with the situation and
circumstances in which we find them, and we shall
form no very imperfect idea of the moral effect which
their appearance must have had upon the new comers.
The boisterous laugh, the angry, sharp retort, the
ready song from some sturdy bacchanal, and the silent
sleeper undisturbed amid all the uproar, made, of themselves,
a picture to the mind not likely to be soon forgotten.
Then, when we behold the flaming of the
torch in the deep dark which it only for a moment
dissipates, and which crowds back, as with a solid body,
into the spot from which it has been temporarily
driven—the light flashing along and reflected back
from the sullen waters of the creek,—listening, at the
same moment, to the cry of the screech-owl as the
intruder scares him from his perch—the plaint of the
whippoorwill, in return, as if even the clamour of the
obscene bird had in it something of sympathy for the
wounded spirit,—these, with the croaking of the frogs
in millions, with which the swamp was a dwelling-place
among a thousand, were all well calculated to
awaken the most indifferent regards, and to compel a
sense of the solemn-picturesque even in the mind of
the habitually frivolous and unthinking.

With the repeated signals which they had heard
from their sentries on the appearance of the new
comers, the scattered groups had simultaneously started
to their feet, and put themselves in a state of readiness.
The signals were familiar, however, and spoke of
friends in the approaching persons; so that, after a
few moments of buzz and activity, they generally sank
back sluggishly to their old occupations,—the card-players
to finish their game, and the less speculative,
their sleep. Their movement, however, gives us a
better opportunity to survey their accountrements. The
long cumbrous rifle seemed the favourite weapon, and
in the hands of the diminutive, sallow, but black-eyed
and venturous dweller in the swamps of the lowlands,
across whose knee we may here and there see it
resting, it may confidently be held as fatal at a hundred
yards. A few of them had pistols—the common
horse-pistol—a weapon of little real utility under any
circumstances. But a solitary musket, and that too
without the bayonet, was to be seen in the whole collection;
and though not one of the party present but
had his horse hidden in the swamp around him, yet
not one in five of the riders possessed the sabre, that
only effective weapon of cavalry. These were yet to
be provided, and at the expense of the enemy.

The immediate appearance of Major Singleton, as
he followed Humphries up the bank, once more called
them to their feet. He had been expected, yet few of
them personally knew him. They knew, however,
that he was high in favour with Governor Rutledge,

and bore his commission. Of this they had been apprized
by Humphries, who had been the recruiting
officer of the troop. They now crowded around him
with a show of curious examination, which was narrow
and close without being obtrusive. With that
manly, yet complaisant habit which distinguished him,
he soon made himself known to them, and his opening
speech won not a little upon their hearts. He unfolded
his commission, delivered an address from the executive,
in which a direct and warm appeal was made
to their patriotism, and concluded with some remarks
of his own to the same effect, which were all enthusiastically
received. His frank, fearless manner, fine
eye, and manly, though smooth and youthful face, took
admirably with them, and at once spoke favourably to
their minds in support of his pretensions to govern
them. This command they at once tendered him;
and though without the material for a force called for
by the commission which he bore, yet, in those times,
it was enough that they loved their leader and were
not unwilling to fight with an enemy. Major Singleton
was content to serve his country in an humbler
command than that which his commission entitled him
to hold. Acting, therefore, as their captain for the
present, he made Humphries his lieutenant. Him
they had long known, and he was a favourite among
them. He, indeed, had been chiefly instrumental in
bringing together their scattered elements, and in thus
forming the nucleus of a corps, which, in the subsequent
warfare, contributed in no slight degree to the
release of the country from foreign thraldom. In
Humphries they had a good officer and every confidence,
though it was obvious enough, that while full
of courage, calm, collected, and not easily moved, he
yet lacked many of those essentials of superior education
and bearing, without which militia-men are not
often to be held in order. He was not sufficiently
their superior to stand apart and to command them;
and the inferior mind will never look to its equal in
the moment of emergency. Though ready and acute
enough in the smaller details of military adventure—
the arrangement of the ambuscade, the rapid blow at
the rear, or the plan for striking at the foragers of an
enemy—he was yet rather apt to go forward with than
to command his party. He trusted rather to his presence
than to the superior force of his character, to
urge upon them the performance of their duties; and,
conscious of this, though ready at all times to lead, he
yet shrank from the necessity of commanding. This
capacity can only result successfully from an habitual
exercise of authority. It was with no small satisfaction,
therefore, that he placed his recruits under the
control of Major Singleton, although, it may be said,
that such a transfer of his command was rather nominal
than real; Humphries still counselling in great
part the particular business of adventure which Singleton
was the better able to command. The latter
had yet to acquire a knowledge of localities which
could only be obtained by actual experiment.

“And now, major, soldiers without arms are not
apt to fight well. Come, sir, with me, and see our
armory. It's a queer one, to be sure, to those used
to a better; but it must serve where there's no choice.
This way, sir—to the left. Here, Tom, bring a
chunk.”

The black led the way with a blazing brand, until
their farther progress was arrested by the waters of
the creek. In the centre of the stream grew a
cypress of immense size, much larger than any of its
surrounding companions. Motioning Singleton to wait,
Humphries waded into the water almost up to his middle,
until he reached the tree, into which, taking the
blazing brand from the black, he entered, returning in
a few moments with half a dozen fine sabres, which,
one after the other, he threw from him to the bank.

“This is all our stock in trade, major; and you
have your choice of them till we can get a better.
This, if I know the signs of the weather, we shall
do before long. Meanwhile, as the stuff's good, they
will answer our present purpose.”

Singleton pressed the points of the weapons severally
to the earth, testing the elasticity of the steel, then
accommodating the hilt to his grip, declared himself
suited. Humphries made a selection after him, and
the remaining four were subsequently distributed
among chosen men, to whom commands in the little
corps were assigned. As rebels, heretofore, the short-shrift
and sure cord must have been their doom if
taken. The commission of the state, and a due register
of their names in the books of the orderly, now
secured them in the immunities of regular warfare,
and made that comparatively innocent which before
was obnoxious to death and degradation.

We have spoken of two several fires as conspicuous
upon the island at the approach of Singleton, the one
upon the centre, the other, and smaller one, at its remotest
extremity. Of the use made of the former,
we have already seen something; the other, while it
had caught the eye of Major Singleton, had been too
remote to enable him to distinguish the employment
or character of the various persons who yet closely
encircled it. He could see that there were several
figures sitting around the brands, which seemed to have
been but loosely thrown together, as they had now
fallen apart, and only gave forth a flickering blaze at
intervals, denying that constant light, without which
he could not hope to gain any knowledge of the persons,
even at a far less distance. These persons had
not moved at his approach, and had remained stationary
all the while he was employed in making himself
known to those who were to be his comrades. This
alone would have been enough to attract his
attention; and, in addition, he saw that those around
him, when bending their glances off in the direction of
his own, shook their heads with an air of solemnity,
and, though saying nothing, were yet evidently influenced
by a knowledge of some circumstances connected
with the mysterious group, of a painful character.
Observing the inquiring look of Major Singleton, Humphries
approached, and whispered him that the party

at the opposite fire consisted of Frampton, his two
sons, and the dead body of his wife, and proposed
that they should go to him. The major at once consented.

“You'll see a sad sight, Major Singleton—a sad
sight!—for the man is crazy, let them say what they
may. He don't know half the time what he says or
does, and he scarcely feels any thing.”

They moved over in the prescribed direction, and approached
without disturbing the chief personage of the
group. The elder son, a youth of twenty, looked up
at their coming, but said nothing. It was evident that
he, and he alone, had been weeping. The other
son, a tall fine-looking lad of sixteen, seemed inspired
with harsher feelings as his eye gazed from
the face of the father to that of the mother, whose
dead body lay between the two, her head on the lap
of the elder son, over whose arms her hair streamed
loosely—long, and delicately brown and glossy. She
had evidently been a woman of some attractions. Her
person was well formed and justly proportioned, neither
masculine nor small. Her features were soft and
regular. The face was smooth, but had been bruised,
seemingly as if she had fallen upon it; and there were
blotches upon the cheek and forehead, which may
have been the consequence of blows, or might be the
natural evidence of that decay which was now strongly
perceptible. The face of the chief mourner, who sat
silent at her feet, looking forward into her face, was
a fine one, as well in its mould as in its expression. It
was that of a splendid savage. There was enough of
solemn ferocity in it for the murderer, enough of redeeming
sensibility to soften, if not to subdue, the
other more leading attributes of its character. His
skin was dark like that of the people generally of that
neighbourhood. His eyes were black and piercing;
and a burning spot on each cheek, seemed to have
borrowed from the red glare of the fire at his side a
corresponding intensity of hue. His lips were parted;
and the lower jaw seemed to have been thrown and

kept down spasmodically. Through the aperture
glared the tips of the small and white teeth, sometimes
closed together by a sudden convulsive jerk, but immediately
relaxing again and resuming their divided
position.

He took no sort of notice of the new-comers, until,
throwing himself alongside of the younger boy, Humphries
took the hand of the mother into his own, and
gazed over upon her face. Frampton then gave him a
look—a single look; and as their eyes met, those of
Humphries intuitively filled with water. The bereaved
wretch, as he saw this, laughed sneeringly and
shook his head. There was no misunderstanding the
rebuke. It clearly scorned the sympathy, and called
for the sterner tribute of revenge. The elder son
then carried on a brief conversation in an under tone
with the lieutenant, which was only audible in part to
Singleton, who sat on the root of a tree opposite.
He gave the particulars of his mother's removal in
this dialogue, and of the resolute doggedness with
which his father had hitherto resisted the burial of the
body.

“It must be buried at once,” said Humphries more
earnestly to the youth. The father heard him, and
glaring upon him with the eyes of a tiger, the desolate
man bent forward and placed his hand resolutely over
the body, as if determined not to suffer its removal.

“Nay, but it must, Frampton;—there's no use in
keeping it here: and, indeed, there's no keeping it
much longer. Hear to reason, man, and be persuaded.”

The person addressed shook his head, and maintained
his hold upon it for a moment in silence; but
all on a sudden, half rising to his feet, he shook his
fists fiercely at the speaker, while his expression was
so full of ferocity, that Humphries prepared for, and
every moment expected, attack.

“You have lied to me, Humphries!” he exclaimed
with difficulty, as if through his clenched teeth.—
“You have lied to me;—you said he should be
here,—where is he? why have you not brought him?”

“Who? brought who?” demanded the other earnestly.

“Who!”—and as the maniac half shrieked out the
word in sneering repetition, he pointed to the body,
while he cried, with a fierce laugh, between each pause
in his words—“who!—did he not strike her—strike
her to the ground—trample upon her body—great
God!—upon her—my wife?” And, as the accumulated
picture of his wife's injuries rose up before his
mind while he spoke, his speech left him, and he
choked, til his face grew livid in their sight, and yet
he had no tears. He soon recovered enough to speak
again with something like a show of calmness.

“You said you were my friend—that you would
bring him to me—that I should kill him here—here,
even while mine eyes yet looked upon her. Liar!
where is he? Why have you not brought him?”

“I am no liar, Frampton, and you know it. I never
promised to bring the dragoons to you; but I am willing
to lead you to them.”

“Do I want a leader for that?—you shall see:” and
he relapsed after this reply into the same solemn stupor
which had marked his looks at the first coming
of the two. Humphries proceeded with temper and
coolness—

“It is time, Frampton, to be a man—to bear up against
your losses, and think how to have revenge for them.”

“I am ready. Speak not to me of revenge—speak
not; I am thirsting—thirsting for blood!” was the reply.

“Yet, here you sit moping over your losses,
while the red-coats are in the swamp—ay, hunting us
out in our own grounds—Huck's dragoons, with Travis
at their head.”

The man was on his feet in an instant. There was
a wild glow now visible in his face, which completely
superseded the sombre fixedness of its previous expression.
All now was summary impatience.

“Come!” said he, waving his hand impatiently, and
convulsively grasping his bosom with his fingers—
“come!”

“It is well. I now see you are in the right mood
for vengeance, and I have made all arrangements for
it. Here is a sword; and this, Frampton, is our commander,
Major Singleton. He is now our leader, and
will put us in the dragoons' tracks in short order.”

The maniac turned stupidly to Singleton, and bending
his head with a strange simper on his lips, simply
repeated the word “Come!” with which he showed his
willingness for the adventure. Humphries whispered
Major Singleton to take him at his word, and move him
off to the rest of the party, while he gave directions
for the interment of the body. Singleton did so, and
without any show of reluctance, Frampton followed
him. Once did he stop suddenly, turn quickly round,
and seem about to retrace his steps; but seeing it,
Singleton simply observed, as if to himself—

“We shall soon be upon the dragoons, and then—”

The object was gained, and the distracted, desolate
creature followed, like a tame dog, the lead of his commander.
He listened in gloomy silence to the arrangements,
as they were agreed upon, for the encounter
with Travis. He knew enough of that sort of fighting
to see that they were judiciously made; and, satisfied
with the promise which they conveyed to his mind of
the revenge which he desired, he offered no suggestion,
nor interfered in the slightest degree with any of their
plans. Still, not a word which had been uttered
among them escaped his appreciation. He was now
fully awakened to a single object, and the reasoning
faculties grew tributary to the desire of his mood when
that became concentrated. He saw that the proposed
plans were the best that could be devised for the encounter,
and he looked to that now for the satisfaction
of his thirst.

Humphries having given his directions duly for the
interment of the body, now returned to join in the deliberations
with the rest. His opinion was adopted by
Major Singleton, who, giving orders that all things
should be in readiness, himself saw to the execution
of certain minor resolves, and then dispersing his

sentries, proceeded to enjoy the three hours of slumber
which had been allotted before the necessary start to
intercept Travis.

It was an hour after midnight when the guards
aroused them with the preparations for their movement.
The night was still, clear, and calm. The winds were
sleeping, or only strove with a drowsy movement along
the tops of the trees, the highest above the swamp.
Sweetly the murmurs of the creek around them, swollen
by the influx of the tide from the sea, which is
there strongly perceptible, broke upon the ear, as
the waters, in feeble ripples, strove against the little
island, and brought with them a sense of freshness
from the sea, which none feels more pleasantly than he
who has been long wandering in the southern forests.
Not a lip had yet spoken among the troops, and save the
slight cry of the capricious insect, and the sound produced
by their own early movement in bustling into
action, there was nothing in that deep stillness and
depth of shadow calculated in the slightest degree to
impair the feelings of solemnity which, in his own
abode, Silence, the most impressive of all the forest
divinities, exacts from his subjects. With a ready
alacrity, obeying the command of their leader, the
troopers were soon in saddle, forming a compact body
of twenty men, Frampton and his two sons included;
the very boys being thus early taught in the duties of
the partisan. Following in such order as the inequalities
of the swamp would permit, they were soon advanced
upon their route through bog and through brier,
slough, forest, and running water—a route, rugged and
circuitous, and not always without its peril. In three
hours, and ere the daylight yet dappled the dun east,
they skirted the narrow ridge where the arrangement
of Singleton placed them, and over which the scouting
party of Travis was expected to pass. There, with
hostile anxiety, and well prepared, they confidently
awaited the arrival of the enemy.